Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Sea-faring, scuba-diving, sight-seers

We've been a couple of lucky pups while away from the blogging scene....

After finishing up our time in the fall colored Colorado Rockies last month, we headed to the Florida Keys, Grand Cayman, and Cozumel Mexico for some family, sun, and scuba.

These pictures are not National Geographic worthy, but are what we have come to expect given our budget for dive cameras and the ocean depth's filtering out much of the light and color spectrum.

Communication under the water is slim for folks like us with little sign language knowledge. But universal hand signals for underwater animals do exist and when followed up by an exaggerated index-finer point, the animal who otherwise may slipped away un-detected by your dive-partner is often spotted. The hand signal in the lower right picture means turtle. A green sea turtle joined us for awhile munching away on the reef.....however, upon loading our pictures we learned that 2 of our 4 dive's shots were missing/deleted. Bummer indeed - but tough to complain about after the experience. (After- all, at least we got a few memory provoking pictures this dive trip....During our honeymoon to Curacao we dove every day and came back with squat.)

Zoo's are always a thought provoking attraction to visit.... While many super intelligent animals, sadly do not receive the enrichment they deserve in captivity... it is comforting to know the KC Zoo boasts a Chimpanzee enclosure called "one of the finest chimpanzee exhibits in North America" bythe awe inspiring Jane Goodall.

The chimps above were raising their hands in hopes of attracting the attention of a care-taker dishing out fun treats. Lemons, pine-cones filled with jam and honey, and other snacks were prizes whose left-overs were deemed worthy of smelling the ground for, as seen in the picture to the right.

Cheetahs and a Grey Crowned African Crane soaking up the late-afternoon rays...

Nice! I agree re: zoos. Always a mixture of feelings. I just went to the San Diego Zoo Wednesday, and they have a bonobo exhibit that I think is new, as well as gorilla, plus elephant, etc. So many smart animals in such a small space but I expect they're better off there than many other zoos, or as someone's dinner/trophy.

You've taken such amazing trips and have such wonderful photos of what you've seen. I'm afraid I've never scuba dived, but can tell that I've missed out on something. Keep having fun in your adventures and sharing your stories and photos!

Love the Chimpanzee photos! I feel the same about Great Apes receiving generally poor enrichment in captivity. Good to see that many zoo's are changing their husbandry methods to improve the lives of these intelligent fellows! Thank you for putting up these pictures for us to see!

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From Birds of the Peruvian Amazon to Mexican Grey wolves to Moose of the Teton Wilderness to Adirondack Pine Martens to Coastal Oregon Spotted owls to NW Hawaiian Monk Seals.... What wildlife are we working with now and where in the world will we be in 6 months? We are often asking ourselves the same questions. So, in a grand effort to keep in touch, you have before you this site...which allows you and the masses to track us